Re:CREATORS – 21

「世界は二人のために I love you too.」 (Sekai wa Futari no Tame ni)
“The World is for Us Two I love you too.”

Re:Creators’ finale may be scheduled for next week, but I think we just saw the ending play out in all its glory. Altair is beaten (well, reformed), Setsuna has been redeemed, and Souta has found the atonement he’s always desired. Sure it was another fine example of the show’s love for dialogue, but it’s hard faulting Re:Creators’ willingness to stick to its guns. What was lacking in impact was mostly made up for with theme.

As expected for most of us by now I think, Altair was not beaten physically as much as philosophically. By stripping away Altair’s raison d’etre, Souta’s Setsuna removed any reason for Altair to pursue world destruction. It was an intriguing discussion given the circumstances, for while this Setsuna may have been “fake”, she was no less real than the original Setsuna. The reason for this lies in Setsuna’s memories. Souta imbued his creation with what he knew of Setsuna and let her personality fill in the rest, not unlike how each creation functioned in the real world. You can never know everything about someone, but so long as you understand their hopes, dreams, fears, and desires, you can reasonably predict what they will do (a la Sugura/Blitz or Takarada/Alice). Because Souta’s creation had all these aspects, relating back to Altair and talking her down as the real Setsuna may have was a bet worth taking and paid off handsomely.

What particularly stuck out for me though was how Setsuna’s wish came back full circle to Re:Creators’ central theme. As Setsuna so calmly alluded to, creation is an act of fun and joy, something you do for the pleasure and satisfaction of not only yourself, but of others. The greatest joy a creator can have is others finding similar feelings in their work, knowing that somehow, someway, you brought a little happiness into another person’s life. This was the tragic irony of Altair’s existence. The military princess was so focused on taking revenge on a world which seemingly abandoned her creator that she failed to see the love and joy she herself brought to others. Her powers and abilities were not a simple fluke, they were gifts provided by those who wanted to give back for the interest and imagination Altair stimulated within them. In effect Altair found the very love Setsuna was denied, and unfortunately took it as disingenuous interest from a world of selfish haters. As mentioned in episodes prior, Altair sadly misconstrued her creation as a deliberate plan for vengeance rather than a simple outlet for pain and agony.

In the end, however, a happy ending was at least found as Altair went full Homura and became a godly creator herself. I’m not too surprised Altair took this route, her Mary Sue powers are a perfect fit for such shenanigans, and ultimately it was actually her plan all along. Destroying the world would have “rewritten” Setsuna’s story by adding a new conclusion, but there was never a reason you couldn’t simply alter the original conclusion in the first place. Changing Setsuna’s fate (well, delaying it via continuous world creation) also gives Souta the relief knowing Setsuna saw and understood his true feelings and harbours no ill will for his selfish treatment. It may have been a little convoluted and convenient a solution for Re:Creators’ conflict, but it nicely ties the bow onto Souta’s role in this story. From a boy little more than a self-professed narrator and third wheel, to a creator affecting the world and the emotions of many—Souta is Re:Creators’ personification of the courage it takes to put your creative hard work on the line, warts and all. It may not have been perfect, but as Setsuna succinctly shows, no story ever is.

With the plot basically wrapped up and Re:Creators now at its end, it’s any guess what the show has in store for its final episode. Probably a little denouement, some elaboration on certain plot elements (ex. Altair’s materialization), or maybe hints for future seasons—who knows. All we can do is wait and see and discover where this ride chooses to make its final stop.

The episode provides a lot of Altair’s character. She was recently created after her creator had died. She had these powers to make the impossible possible but before she came to existence, she was powerless to help Setsuna. However when Setuna was recreated, Altair had this chance: if she has these powers when Setsuna was about to commit suicide, could she have saved her? We now have that answer.

As for Setsuna, it up to your interpretation whether or not this was genuinely the real Setsuna. On one hand, she was created to be the representation of Sota’s regrets and dreams of forgiveness. However on the other, if there is a God that ruled over the Gods, God may have permitted the spirit of the girl to return and settle the matter of those that hold dear to her.

I forgot to mention it, but last episode, Magane was at an airport and had a suitcase with her, implying she’d be leaving Japan. Which leads me to wonder if some of the Creations might be able to remain in our world.

I have to admit, Magane sure played a wonderful role as the “wild card.”

Anyway, I can now ship Meteora with Sota. I am not sure if Meteora wants to return to her world since she likes to eat yummy food. I am sure the JSDF will find GREAT use for her magic. Maybe Meteora will open a GATE (reference to gate thus the jsdf fought there) to a fantasy world and Japan will fight roman-style fantasy soldiers.

When we all started suspecting that Souta was going to insert Setsuna into the story, I couldn’t help but cringe at the idea. Now having seen it play out… It wasn’t cringe-inducing persay, but at the same time I haven’t been able to find a good word for my feelings on it. Souta effectively cloned Setsuna, with both memories and personality intact. My immediate question was if this created Setsuna could only say what he had written for her, but judging by Souta’s reactions in the episode that’s clearly not the case. The logic of how he managed to recreate a real person as a character with such completeness and independence despite no real buildup, even with Magane’s magic assisting, really tests my suspension of disbelief (which already has a lot of give with this series, of course). The underlying points made in the episode are valid for the reasons you highlighted Pancakes, but it’s just how we got there… I dunno, I guess I just need to see how the bow is put on this next week before I can really decide how I feel on the execution.

On Created Setsuna, Hiroe Rei confirms while “technically speaking this “Setsuna” is something created by Sota, (she’s now) a character without any additional settings, beside being an ordinary girl who created Altair. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be “Setsuna Shimazaki”.

In addition, he stated Setsuna’s debut was possible through Magane’s power and something he calls “the superposition of information” (情報の重層さ).

My guess on how Souta-created Setsuna can feel so complete is that the real-world filled in the info that Souta missed.

Just like how the real-world filled in the other creations (who all initially lacked the amount of info to exist as “real” beings in this info-rich world), the real-world also gave Souta-created Setsuna more depth. And since there had existed a Setsuna before, the same info could have been applied to the Souta-created Setsuna (since that would be easier to do rather than the world having to come up with some within-probability variables to fill with).

Yeah, that probably helped. Also, even if it was for a short time, Souta met the real Setsuna, talked to her, had online conversations with her. Until the Re:Creators crisis, that was impossible to do with a Creation.

Also, I believe that Altair was (unknowingly) feeding more information to this Setsuna. Her (real) emotions vibrated in the new character. “You know me even better than I do”.

On the other hand, I’d say that this “fake” Setsuna did lose dimensions in the process. This Setsuna is the one Souta remembers, kind, humble and gentle, not the depressed girl full of resentment that gave birth to Altair. Even if she’s intellectually aware of what happened to the real Setsuna, those experiences don’t rule over her mind. Would the real Setsuna have had the same reaction if they had magically appeared before she died? Perhaps, or perhaps she wouldn’t have cared or perhaps she would have said “yes, please, burn this world”. We’ll never know for sure.

The buildup is definitely something which is problematic, fully agreed. I’m still mulling over whether I think the ending we received here is enough to make up for it, but at the minimum Re:Creators didn’t fall apart at the seams, which was a serious possibility lol.

Well, I will make an early prediction which will unlikely happen, the next episode is about a time skip where Sota becomes a successful author and is married to Magane Chikujoin and the two had procreated.

In regards to this episode, I had completely predicted a “Talk no Jutsu” would take place. Not much fighting, but still good; I mean, a “Talk no Jutsu” is the Only way to beat an invincible villain, such a result is better than some cliché ending where the hero suddenly gains a super miracle attack and defeats the villain. Notably, I Can’t believe that the (in-anime) audience actually stayed up ALL night till SUNRISE to watch this special “anime” collaboration. People must have been shocked with how much time it took.

In regards to Setsuna Shimazaki. I am Shocked in how Sota drew a 2D version of her that Altair can recognize. If someone shows me a 2D Mono Lisa (from Fate/Grand Order) then I wouldn’t recognize it based on what I remember from the real Mona Lisa painting. I am sure many of us wouldn’t recognize ourselves if a 2D version was made.

I always got the impression that Altair didn’t really care about allies. If she could recruit someone she would, but if not, no serious loss. The objective was chaos, and Magane did that well enough without direction :P

At this point it’s impossible to say if the anime’s timeline is even true. Episode 21 essentially ends with Setsuna becoming the author of everything that’s happened, which amounts to a giant mashup fanfic about the characters she likes and the boy she’s in love with helping to save her. My take is that everything post the opening monologue was story and we’ll skip back to the beginning to have Souta going to meet Setsuna after reading her story.

Considering all the metaphors floating around it could easily be played off as just a story she wrote to work through her own personal emotions.

On the side note, I just learned a fun fact. Notice how Altair said to Setsuna “I wanted to see you for so long!” While Altair was probably created for about a year, her mental age and so forth probably reflects her physical age. Which makes sense where, in Celestia’s case, Celestia is physically 19 yet she and her entire story is much younger than that.

Souta was Setsuna’s scriptwriter, but he only knew bits and pieces of her memories. What made her “real” was her personality which filled in the blanks and which Souta knew well enough to (re)create. It was the same as how the other creations materialized and were able to be “alive” and not robotic, their personalities accounted for the missing pieces.

Indeed. I liked a lot the part about Altair arguing that it was preposterous to think that she, a villain that wants to destroy the world, could be loved by so many people, that she wasn’t the “hero”. And then Setsuna, in very poetic words, expressed what we talked about in the last episode: cool villains, especially if they have sympathetic motives, can easily become more popular than the good guys.

Lemme abridge the episode.
Setsuna: “Hello…Altair. I am your creator”
Altair: “No, it ain’t true! You cowards! Trying to deceive me with this fake!”
Setsuna: “Yes, I am a fake. But so are you and you are real. So I’m real too.”
Altair: “*gasp* Oh Setsuna.”
Setsuna: “And now I have to jump in front of the train again to disappear cuz symbolism.”
Altair: “No! I won’t let you! Cuz baby, you mean the world to me. So imma create a whole new world for us. One where we can have an existential paradox for all eternity, the yuri world!
Setsuna: “Oh, btw Souta. Still have your glasses, come and try and get them *winkwink*”
Souta: ( ‘O’) (TT^TT )
Announcer: “And on that bombshell it’s time to end! Goodnight!”

Seriously though. I felt like this and the next (last) episode were meant as one double sized episode. First half resolve of the conflict and second half the aftermath. Felt really weird how it kinda cutoff at the end with “the festival is over, kbye!”.
So Altair and Setsuna are now living it up in limbo. Not sure I like that. It’s like Altair said screw the rules, I’ll bring you back. But I’ll do it in my own secret hidden place so no one will notice I did it. Kinda like saying you openly oppose to something by writing about it in your diary.

I won’t judge this episode yet as I really feel like I only saw half of it.

From what I understood the limbo living was the only way of keeping Setsuna alive. Her reincarnation is on a timer because her death is permanent and cannot be changed (I believe), which forces Altair to constantly create new worlds which let her live on. I’m probably wrong somewhere in that, but the entire explanation was a little convoluted.

As Setsuna was brought about with Magane assistance, I imagine that extends to the ending as well. The whole scene was dissociated from audience approval in the first place, but I doubt many were too unhappy with Altair showing her soft side :P

Let me get this straight, Altarir is monster that torture many creations into her own selfish omnicidal ends, she killed Mamika and Aliceteria, caused the death of Selesia (etill hoping for a resurrection) and Charon after he broke his mind and she gets a happy ending!!!?? Are they ctreators of this series insane!? How could the audience like her, the sympathy stops when she starts killing people and she enjoyed every minute of it!. Sorry but I hope that in the next episode they manage to bring back Selesia and everybody else that died because they are the true heroes that deserve a happy ending, they earn that much.

It ultimately proves Altair right: the “gods of pleasure” are the real amoral monsters that will make people suffer and die not because it’s fair or moral, but because it’s interesting. To be boring is the greatest crime in fiction.

Altair could be many things, but she wasn’t boring. She was the force that moved the plot. Add usual tropes such as “Protagonist-centered morality”, “Draco in leather pants”, “Freudian excuse”, etc., and it’s no wonder that in-universe (and out-universe) she would have fans that would root for her against the “heroes”.

She’s not the only one. Which is the other Creation that got her happy ending? Why, none other than Magical Meido Magane-chan, a murderous psycho that has killed and tortured others for fun, and, unlike Altair, she doesn’t have a personal trauma to justify her actions. But hey, since she was fun, owned every scene she was in, and helped the heroes Souta with his plan, no hard feelings.

Ok, if previously I wanted t-shirts for Alicetaria, now I want one that says: Altair Was Right.

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